I think I might find it offending if I was an Arab — even though I might be an atheist. I am not sure. I remember once watching some older episodes of SNL where they were making fun of Czechoslovakia, a country where I was born. I did laugh. They were mocking Communism after all. But, as much as I was trying not to think about it, I still felt a little offended.

Well, I’m sure somebody will be offended. But I don’t think that’s the most important factor in deciding if it’s acceptable to say something publically. I think it has more to do with the intent to demean or to harm than just whether somebody could conceivably be offended. There are no bright lines between what is reasonable or unreasonable to find offensive, or between what is one’s right to say versus what it is right to say. I generally try to err on the side of being considerate, but you can’t ever make everybody happy.

My own personal opinion is that most people will get the point of the joke and realize it is not especially about Islam or Muslems but about the dissonance between taking a vacation photo and the fact that none of the subjects are individually identifiable, at least in the usual way. But I guess we’ll see.

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The SkeptVet Blog
You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.
Johnathan Swift

Also, James, I assume you are Polish. Does it ever bother you when people make fun of John Paul II? But I guess you can just say to yourself: I know he was Polish, but so were Chopin and Copernicus.

People SHOULD be offended now and then. There are not enough people being offended in the world in my opinion. My wife has a great t-shirt from the Minneapolis Public Library that says, “If a library is doing it’s job it will have a book to offend every single person.” I love that, and believe it.

There is also a difference between BEING offended and INSULTING someone. I can say catholics are stupid and a person that is catholic can be offended or I can say YOU are stupid and that is different, even if I am basing my assumption on the fact that you are catholic.

Muslims are so easily offended which makes me want to offend them even more. I love the photo of the muslim protestor after the Danish cartoon debacle holding the sign that read something like, “IF YOU SAY ISLAM IS NOT A PEACEFUL RELIGION WE WILL CHOP OFF YOUR HEAD”. Now THAT is funny! Well, until you realize it’s true, then it’s disgusting. People can try and offend me all they want but I won’t be choppping off any heads.

Which leads me to this picture. It’s hilarious. What is the point of them taking a picture when they are all covered up?! I have no respect for religion as a whole and even less for one that treats women as mere property. (If you are reading this and don’t already know about the blog Kafir Girl you owe it to yourself to check it out: http://kafirgirl.wordpress.com/ )

Regarding John Paul II, he was OK as popes go I guess but that’s not saying much. It was under his administration that all the sex abuse cover-ups took place in the U.S. - something that the catholic church is still trying to solve with multi-million dollar settlements rather than any real reform. People in Poland do LOVE that guy though and even though he’s dead and that scary German dude is now the CEO, you’d never guess it because John Paul’s picture is still everywhere. (For people that don’t know, Poland is over 90% catholic…)

Well, that seems to be a bit different. When the moslem gets home and has the pictures of his trip out, can we expect anyone to say, “Wow, that’s a great picture of my sister, but I don’t recognize that woman second from the left.”

I suppose, under some conditions, someone would need to see unclothed pictures to identify who was whom, but . . .

What if a bunch of nudists looked at us and said:“Look at those people!What’s the sense of taking a group photo?They all have their clothes on?”

It would be funny to them and ridiculous of us to be offended. Few things have done more harm through history than the lack of a sense of humor about oneself. Hey, I like that. Maybe I’ll have it carved on my tombstone.

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The SkeptVet Blog
You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.
Johnathan Swift

Few things have done more harm through history than the lack of a sense of humor about oneself.

Amen! :)

And I do believe it’s because not being able to laugh at oneself on occasion is a sure sign of puerile insecurity (it’s too bad Lance Armstrong wasn’t around during the rise of the Third Reich ~ Hitler might have felt a little less insecure about missing one of ‘his boys’:). Not to mention the fact that, for the most part, people who don’t have a sense of humour about themselves are usually painful and tedious to be around :)

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‘we are so fundamentally constituted of desire that we go on hearing music…...even though we know the band is gone and the stage is silent’